Protecting Children Online

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

It is really important during this debate to make the point that everyone wants to see what we can do to minimise this harm. It is not appropriate to suggest that Ministers are not aware of the issues and do not want to act. [Interruption.] Nor is it appropriate to heckle me as I come on to setting out the points that I am here to set out. We need to work across Parliament. Members of the public will want to see cross-party action to tackle these issues.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

What are you going to do, then?

[Mr Vaizey]

I will tell the hon. Lady what I am going to do if she stops heckling me from the Front Bench. This is the kind of conduct that the Opposition seek to bring to the debate.

Since 2008, the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, set up by the previous Government, has brought together industry, charities, law enforcement and academia to focus on developing measures to keep children safe online. In October 2011, under the auspices of UKCCIS, and under this Government, the internet service providers developed a voluntary code of practice on the implementation of internet parental controls. A year on, the biggest four internet providers met their commitment to offer parental internet controls to new customers. Now, in a further step, the biggest five have committed to delivering whole home, network-level parental control tools by the end of this year. That will allow parents to set, with one click, parental controls on all devices in the home.

When we began these discussions with ISPs, they told us that that was not technically possible, so we have moved a huge way forward. Making it easier for parents to block adult and age-restricted material was a Bailey recommendation and that has been achieved. Network-level filters for domestic broadband was also a recommendation of the independent parliamentary inquiry into online child protection.